style="font-size:15px;"> “I’m not sure I could, in any case,” he whispered back. His head lowered again and this time his mouth was gentle, teasing, exploring hers with tenderness and lazy hunger that grew to anguished passion in no time at all.
She felt the wall at her back, cold and hard, and Cole’s heated body pressing her into it, in an intimacy that she’d never even dreamed. The contours of his flat stomach had changed quite suddenly; his mouth was hurting hers.
Frightened, her hands pressed frantically against the hair-roughened strength of his chest.
Cole drew back at once, his own eyes as shocked as hers at the barriers of decency he’d overstepped in his mindless desire. He stepped away from her, dark color overlaying his high cheekbones.
Lacy’s swollen lips were parted as she struggled for breath and composure, staring up at him with embarrassed comprehension. He shuddered just slightly, and, Lacy’s eyes encountered with sudden and startled starkness the visible evidence of his loss of control. She blushed red and averted her eyes even as Cole turned away from her.
She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Her body felt oddly swollen and hot, and there was a tightness in her lower stomach that she’d never experienced. Her bodice felt far too tight. She tugged at the lace of her white midi blouse and searched for the right words.
“I beg your pardon, Lacy,” Cole said in a taut, all-too-formal tone, although he didn’t look at her. “I never meant that to happen.”
“It’s all right,” she replied huskily. “I—I should have protested.”
“You did. Too late,” he added, with faint dryness, as he turned toward her, back in command of his senses once more. His dark hair was disheveled, lying over his broad forehead, and there was still that faint color on his high cheekbones. His deep brown eyes held a light that was puzzling as they swept with new boldness over Lacy’s slender body and back up to her own vivid blue eyes.
“I—I should go,” she faltered.
“Yes, you should,” he agreed. “You’ll be compromised if any of the family find us alone like this in my bedroom.”
But she didn’t move. Neither did he.
His chest rose and fell deeply. “Come here,” he said softly, and opened his arms.
She went into them gracefully, and laid her hot cheek against his cool, damp chest, the thick hair tickling her skin. His heartbeat was deep and quick, like his breathing, but he held her with utter decorum, his arms protective rather than passionate.
“Wait for me,” he whispered into her ear.
“All my life,” she replied brokenly.
His arms contracted then, and he shivered with feeling. But after a few seconds, he put her away from him, searching her eyes with banked-down hunger.
“I love you,” she said unsteadily, damning pride and self-respect.
“Yes,” he said, his voice deep and quiet, his face giving nothing away. “Try to help Mother with Katy and Ben while I’m away. Stay close to the house. Don’t go out alone, ever.”
“I won’t.”
He drew in a slow breath. “The war won’t last forever. And I’m not suicidal. No more tears.”
She managed a shaky smile. “Not until you leave, at least,” she promised.
His fingers traced her cheek tenderly. “I thought you were afraid of me, all these years. But it wasn’t fear, was it?” he asked, his jaw tightening as he looked at her. “You’ve loved me for a long time, and I never saw it.”
She nodded slowly. “I never meant you to know.”
“It’s just as well that I do, now,” he replied. He bent and brushed a slow, tender kiss over her lips. “Write to me,” he whispered. “I’ll come home, Lacy.”
“I’ll pray every night for you,” she replied. “Oh, Cole….”
“No more tears,” he said sternly when her eyes began to sparkle with them. “I can’t bear to see you cry.”
“Sorry.” She drew back from him, her heart in her face. “I’d better go, hadn’t I?”
“I’m afraid so.” His eyes swept over her one last time. “We’ll say our proper good-byes when I leave.”
“Our proper good-byes,” she agreed.
It had been the last time she’d seen him alone. He said a very formal good-bye to the family before a neighbor drove him to the train station. Lacy watched the Model T Ford drive away and she cried piteously, along with Marion and Katy, for the rest of the day.
Cole did write, but not to Lacy. He wrote to the family, and because there was no mention at all of what they’d shared in his bedroom, she didn’t write to him, either. Apparently he was eager to forget the intimacy. It was never referred to. His letters were full of airplanes and the beauty of France. He never spoke of the dogfights he participated in, but his name drifted back home to Texas in newspaper accounts of the air war, and along with several other Americans, he became known as an ace.
Katy grew wildly infatuated with the aces she read about—and especially with one they called Turk Sheridan, a blond Montana boy with nerves of steel who was considered the most daring of the fliers.
Late in 1918, as life droned on at the ranch, they received word that Cole had been wounded. Lacy almost went mad before they finally found out that he wasn’t critically ill, and that he would live. The letter came from Turk Sheridan, who added that he might come back with Cole to Texas after the war as the two men had become fast friends and Turk himself was a rancher.
Katy was over the moon about their prospective new lodger, but Lacy was worried about Cole. When his letters came again, they were in a different handwriting, and the tone of them was stiff and distant.
Cole came home soon after the armistice in 1919, with the big blond Turk in tow. Lacy went running to Cole, despite all her stubborn determination not to. When he put out his hands and almost pushed her away, his rejection total and all too public, Lacy felt something die inside her. There was no expression on Cole’s hard face, and nothing in his eyes. He was a different man.
He threw himself into the business of trying to get the ranch back on its feet, while Katy began a long and determined pursuit of Turk Sheridan, whose real name was Jude. Soon after the war, a wealthy great-aunt of Lacy’s died and left her an inheritance of monumental proportions. Lacy was grateful because it gave her some measure of independence, but it seemed to set her even further apart from Cole, who was foundering in hard financial times following the war.
They planted crops to supplement the cattle they raised, and Turk got his hands on an old biplane and used it to dust the crops with pesticides. It amazed everyone that not only did Cole refuse to go near it, he didn’t even care to discuss airplanes anymore. That shocked Lacy, who one day made the mistake of asking him why he’d lost his fascination with flying. His scalding reply had hurt her pride and her feelings, and she’d walked wide around him afterward.
About that time, young Ben developed a huge crush on Lacy.
